Snail problem not sure what to do

[tjnitro]

OK here is the deal. About two months ago i had every snail in my 75 gallon reef die within two days. I have tried to replace some of the snails a few times and none of them seem to last much more than a week. I have some hair algae and other algae growing now. I am not sure what to try. My shrimp and fish don't seem to be having any problems. The coral is all doing OK too.
Anyone have any ideas what i could check for or do? I keep it the same temp and salinity as my 29 gallon reef and i have no problems with snails in my 29 so not sure what is going on in my 75.
any advice on what to check or do would be great.

 

[ajroc31]

Did you acclimate the snails? Check your alkalinty. I have read somewhere, here actually I think, that hard water kill snails. Perhaps the tank you put the snails into had insane amounts on nitrates. The critters that were there slowly go used to it, although it will kill them in the long run, but it was just too much for the snails. Hair algae outbreaks are an indication of too much nitrates, phosphates and dow.

 

[beaslbob]

Don't think I can help you much.
Four things come to mind
1) acclimation but that doesn't explain the sudden death of already acclimated snails
2) copper like from tap water but that is highly unlikely as your corals are doing fine.
3) lack of food but you do have some algae there
4) predation. like hermit crabs.
sorry could be more helpful.

 

[tjnitro]

thanks for the reply. I will check alkalinity. I use RO water purchased at the LFS and i only use Reef Crystals for salt. Nitrates have spiked a little each time i had snails die but it goes back down fairly quickly. And yes i acclimate using the drip method. It takes me about 3 hours but i have never had a problem with anything else. Just snails. I even bought snails from two different places 200 miles apart to make sure it was not a bad batch of snails.

 

[ajroc31]

Thats so weird. I am like Bob here, wish i could help you. I will just brain storm through all the possible options. Do you find dead snails, or just shells? If its just shells, then something nasty is killing them. For snails to break down will take a while. Maybe you have some weird toxic strand of algae (reaching here). What are your nitrate levels? But with corals doing ok, that should not be a problem. Check your ph, all that stuff, btw what is your salinity? Try to eliminate water as an issue, so test if for everything you have tests for, or take it to your lfs.

 

[sepulatian]

This is a tricky one being that all of your corals are alive and well. How did the snails die? Were they on the glass and dropped off? What kind of snails did you have and what kind of algae?

 

[cranberry]

What kind of snails? Did you buy them from the same place?

 

[beaslbob]

Hs the temperature of you tank increased? Some snails cannot handle high reef type temperatures.

 

[tjnitro]

I did try buying the snails at different locations. The locations were different types of stores 200 miles apart. I had Cerith Snails, Nassarius Snails, Astraea, and Zebra turbo snails. I have noticed that my Nassarius are still there. but the others died. My temp ranges from 77-80. I have never seen it under or over that range. My Salinity is 1.027 and my PH is 8.3. I took a sample into the LFS and they said all of the levels were great. Even my nitrates are almost back to normal after the last ones died (i get a spike any time one dies).

 

[luvmyreef]

Do you run carbon? You might try to run some chemipure and see if that helps. There might be something in the source water that is causing the problem, and carbon is a good way to try and remove it. And your salinity could be lowered just a bit to 1.024 or 1.025, inverts are sensitive to changes in this. Just my 2 cents.